Byron York: Obama's 'messianism' makes economy a secondary concern
December 31, 2012 | 4:30 pm
Many Republicans have accused Barack Obama of ignoring the economy. That's not true. The problem with Obama is not that he has ignored the economy, but that it was never his top priority in his first term as president, even as millions of Americans suffered the consequences of a devastating economic downturn.
Now, with many still struggling, we know the economy won't be Obama's top concern in his second term, either. On "Meet the Press" on Sunday, when the president was asked to name his top priority for the next four years, he first listed immigration reform. "That's something we should get done," Obama said.
The economy came after that, as the president continued: "The second thing that we've got to do is to stabilize the economy and make sure it's growing."
Obama's third priority for his new term is to manage the explosion in U.S. energy production "in a way that also deals with some of the environmental challenges that we have." Given that the energy revolution -- fracking and the discovery of huge new sources of gas and oil -- is a key driver of economic growth, Obama's third priority is, in effect, to put the brakes on his second priority.
During Obama's first term, when economic conditions bordered on desperate, Republicans often criticized him for putting the economy behind other concerns, most notably national health care. Indeed, the president and Democrats sometimes conceded the criticism when they talked about making a "pivot" to the issue of jobs and the economy from whatever policy pursuit Obama felt was more important at the time.
When the time came to run for re-election, Obama finally started talking about the economy -- a lot. He talked about it, and why his economic plan was superior to Mitt Romney's, so much that audiences might well have come away with the impression that economic recovery was the president's top second-term priority. Turns out they would have been wrong.